Death Knight starter kit

I am still new to my death knight orc. I love the class. I am wanting to build my tanking skills. What is everyones favorite sites to research. I am not completly new to the game but just joining a guild in the last few weeks, I feel like Ive missed out on alot of content. I am going back to do some of the older content but still am lost sometimes. Ive been questioning the higher lvls in my guild but would love to have some more direction.What are some of best ways to practice tanking?What are some everyones favorite build spec's before duel spec and after?

I would love any ideas. The more I get involved in the game the more depth I am getting out of it. Since starting to listen to the podcasts I want more and more info.

I have to say, the best way to practice tanking is to dive in and do it. The thing about tanking is that it really is a balancing act between optimizing your threat and your survivability, so I would recommend Tankspot.com or elitistjerks.com for the nuts and bolts of DK tanking mechanics (if you're not familiar). Tankspot also has some really good tips for tanking (placement, threat, pulling techniques, etc.) so that would be the place I would start.

I have been batting around the idea of a DK tanking post in the Blog, but haven't had much experience with it up to this point. Now, however I find myself OTing in Ulduar, so I need to get my stuff together.

Right now, I'm using a 12/52/7 Frost build. I decided to go with it since I don't have best in slot gear and frost feels a bit more consistent. I get a little bit more mitigation from Improved Frost Presence and slow down incoming melee damage with Improved Icy Touch. I may be switching to a deeper blood spec for survivability, but since I'm still getting my head around the fights I will stay frost for consistency's sake. Once I have more of the gear from Ulduar and can get my avoidance (dodge and parry) up, I will likely switch to Unholy although I hear threat is supposed to be a problem right now. I guess we'll just see.

For some gear ideas, Scourge has a list of DK tank items on his blog that works well. My only problem with it is that I notoriously have low rolls and since i wasn't tanking while I was putting together my set, it took a long time to get my gear together. The single biggest concern you should have while you're gearing up is defense to get yourself to the point where you're not crittable. Once you hit that point, you can swap out some gear for better stats and avoidance. But that should be your short term goal. Find a good healer if you can, that will put up with the amount of burst damage you will be taking in the meantime.

I'll get a blog up soon about more DK tanking stuff in regards to the different trees and strengths and weaknesses, etc.

Frost tanking is strong, but currently Blood is overpowered. It's what I use and I'd recommend it, it's what a lot of guilds are using to clear the hardest encounters that other tanks can't handle (DKs are OP).

-Use Blood Strike or Rune Tap to keep your Blood runes on cooldown so Blade Barrier stays up.- Keep your diseases up. - If your diseases are up and your Blood runes are on cooldown, use Death Strike. -Rune Strike is your friend for threat!-Chain your cooldowns and trinkets, shortest cooldowns first. Until 3.2, this is Anti-Magic Shield, Icebound Fortitude, Rune Tap, then your trinkets and Vampiric Blood. I usually save mark of blood as a last resort if everything else is down. You can make VB and MoB easier to use with a minor glyphed Blood Tap, preferably right after using both blood runes (as BT resets the rune as well as making it a death rune)-Get to 540 defense in your character window. The Stonestin Gargoyle Runeforge on your weapon and the Heroic Badge Sigil can both help with this (just make sure you use Icy Touch often enough to keep the extra defense from the sigil up). This is pretty easy with enchants, gems, and some crafted gear (saronite blues and titansteel pieces), which are pretty cheap nowadays.-As for gear, focus on stacking stamina with your gems/enchants. If you go for socket bonuses (which is usually a good idea unless you have to sacrifice a lot of stam), use def/stam gems in yellow sockets and dodge/stam gems in red sockets.-Use a 2-hander. Any will do, don't worry about getting one with tank stats, they don't exist (though lean toward higher stam). Titansteel Destroyer is a great starter tanking weapon.

Hiya! I'm a Warrior tank in an Ulduar raid guild, and I have to agree with the above posts, Blood DK's seem where it's at, and I'm sooo jealous of the DK Tank I run with. As far as learning how to tank goes, find some friends, one of them being an imba healer and 3 dps that aren't so trigger happy. You'll learn from your mistakes but most importantly you'll get a feel for the game mechanics and be able to predict the enemy mob movements which is so important as a tank.

Gear/Talent Specs/Glyphs and discussions are readily available at deathknight.info as well as the others mentioned above.

Easy tanking stuff to obtain can be found from the faction rep quartermasters. The Wyrmrest Accord offer the Breastplate of Solemn Council and Sabatons of Draconic Vigor at Revered. The Argent Crusade offer the Arcanum of the Stalwart Protector at Revered as well. Finally, the Kirin Tor have the Fireproven Gauntlets at Exalted. The good thing about each of these is that if you are earning rep with them, you are running heroics where you can get badges for more gear as well as hope for drops for even more gear. The key is to run only the heroics you need for gear drops or that have the daily quest for them. This maximizes your chance for gear.

It is also good, when learning to tank, to take a step down and run something beneath you. Maybe a regular Nexus or tank for a Karazhan run. This gives you the chance to learn how to hold aggro and manage mobs without the fear that you will have no room for error. Practice is key to learning how to do any role well.

When do you believe a DK can tank? My first exposure to DK tanks was when i was leveling my healer. I have been playing for nearly a year now. The DK tanks from level 55-61 were mostly terrible. Now that i have leveled a DK to 80 i see some of the problems. First is experience, a lot of people were signing up for tank for a quick queue but had no idea what they were doing. the other is gear. after you are fresh out of the DK training area you have maybe 1-2 pieces of gear with any tank properties. Next is available spells. Until you hit early 60s and get DnD you are lacking a good amout of threat. dark command doesn't come in for another 10 levels i think. So after saying all that. Have you found it possible to tank in the earliers levels or is it just for endgame tanking?

I agree with you on DK's being a little tricky to tank with before 60.

On my DK, as soon as I hit 60 I spec'd frost for tanking the BC instances, and pretty much spammed Howling Blast, along with Blood Boil, and then D&D when I got it. Also with the change to Icy Touch, it's pretty easy to pick up adds if things get out of hand.

The gear you get from the DK starting quests is the equivalent to vanilla raiding gear, the only problem I think you would run into tanking pre 60 on a DK is threat management, due to the lack of a proper taunt.